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writing for the third millennium
Lorette C. Luzajic
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goodbye, Billie Jean: the meaning of Michael Jackson
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Only $27.95 No shipping fees, of course, if you'd like to visit me in Toronto to pick it up. You can choose to order on Amazon or Chapters soon. |
When Michael Jackson died, Lorette C. Luzajic wanted to do something special. Like just about everyone else in the world, she wanted to mark the loss of this legendary life. And maybe it was a bit grandiose for a little-known (but growing) writer to decide to make the most amazing, most interesting, best looking MJ book of all.
Lorette writes regularly about interesting people, pop culture, madness and death, so the topic was certainly up her alley. But she had never spearheaded an anthology before. Still, Lorette has never been one to let inexperience keep her from gaining experience, and she plunged headlong into the project.
Maybe she should have listened to the naysayers who said it would be too much work, too much deadline pressure to get it together quickly, and perhaps even too much Michael Jackson. But she didn't listen, and here it is: Goodbye, Billie Jean: fifty-one writers on the meaning of Michael Jackson.
Click on any contributor's name to read more about him or her.
- Jason Bourner
- Russell Bowers
- Coline Covington
- Kevin Craig
- Michael Davidson
- Jeff Dayton-Johnson
- Antony Di Nardo
- Joseph Dispenza
- Donnarama
- Sherman Fleming
- Eddie Ford
- Timothy Gabriele
- Stephen J. Gertz
- Andreas Gripp
- Andy Guess
- Rohin Guha
- Stan Guthrie
- Chris Hedges
- HiScrivener
- Obiwu Iwuanyanwu
- Reuben Jackson
- Pat Kane
- Jamyang Khedrup
- Willie James King
- Jeff Koopersmith
- Kimberly Krautter
- Raymond Lawrence
- John Lee
- Lorette C. Luzajic
- Jonathan Margolis
- Ralph Martin
- David Masciotra
- Angela Meyer
- Rev. Irene Monroe
- Georgianne Nienaber
- Jess Nevins
- (O)CT(O)PUS
- Onome
- Dion O'Reilly
- Carolyn R. Parsons
- Samuel Peralta
- Michael Hureaux Perez
- Javad Rahbar
- Dr. Pamela D. Reed
- Lauren Reichelt
- Ralph Remington
- Steven Rybicki
- Tara Stevens
- Edwin Turner
- David R. Usher
- Uwineza Mimi Harriet
- and artist, Iaian Greenson
The Writers
Jason Bourner
Jason Bourner is a music graduate from Wilfrid Laurier University. He was worked in the television industry in Toronto, as well as many other part-time gigs. Jason plans to return to university this fall to study Social Work at the University of Windsor. In his spare time he likes to perform in community theatre productions. jrbourner@hotmail.com
Russell Bowers
Russell Bowers is the host and producer of Daybreak Alberta, CBC’s popular breakfast radio. He has lived and worked from one coast of Canada to the other. Radio host, print journalist, podcaster, comedian, music producer, theatre actor, and more, Russell has contributed in a wide variety of ways to media. He produced a retrospective CD on East Coast musician Harry Hibbs. It’s the biggest selling CD in the history of CBC. Russell was also influential in organizing a disaster relief project for flooding on the east coast in 2003. A televised concert featuring Great Big Sea and 150 others, they raised 400 grand for Canadian Red Cross. In March 2006, Russell spent fourteen hours live reporting on the sinking of Queen of the North, a British Columbia ferry. He also finds time to write Russays for his website, russpod.com.
Coline Covington
Coline Covington is a Jungian analyst in private practice in London and former chair of the British Psychoanalytic Council. She has co-edited, Sabina Spielrein: Forgotten Pioneer of Psychoanalysis, published by Routledge in 2003 and Terrorism and War: Unconscious Dynamics of Political Violence, published by Karnac in 2002. She is writing a book on the psychoanalytic view of the meaning of evil. Coline also writes a regular column for The First Post, an Internet magazine.
Kevin Craig
Kevin Craig is a writer, poet and playwright. His poetry has been published in Jones Av. Journal, Regina Weese, Toronto Quarterly, Quills and Ditch, to name a few. He is a two-time Best Adult Novel winner of the Muskoka Novel Marathon. Kevin’s memoir has been published in Globe and Mail and recorded for CBC Radio Canada. His articles have been published in newspapers and magazines throughout North America, including Toronto Sun, Esteem Magazine, There’s No Place Like Home Magazine and Live It! Magazine. His play, Panic in the Basement, was recently performed at Driftwood Theatre’s Trafalgar24 event. He was recently awarded a fellowship to attend a writing program in Nairobi, Kenya this coming December. kevintcraig.wordpress.com
Michael Davidson
Michael Davidson is the assistant managing editor at gnovis, Georgetown University’s Peer-Reviewed Journal of Communications, Culture and Technology in Washington, D.C. He received his MA in English and Composition Studies at the University of Maine. While teaching composition to college students, Michael developed an interest in communication and rhetorical practices in various social, political and cultural contexts. Michael is committed to progressive political issues and the work of nonprofit organizations. He also enjoys ice hockey, and spending time with his wife, Caryn.
Jeff Dayton-Johnson
Jeff Dayton-Johnson contributes regularly to AllAboutJazz.com. He is also a senior economist specializing in the Americas at the OECD Development Centre in Paris. Prior to that he coordinated the development economics programme at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He has written extensively on issues related to economic development and Latin America, and is the author of Social Cohesion & Economic Prosperity (Lorimer, Toronto, 2001).
Antony Di Nardo
Antony Di Nardo is a poet and teacher. His work appears widely in journals across Canada and internationally. A collection of his poems, Alien, Correspondent, is forthcoming from Brick Books in spring 2010. He’s often seen sipping decafs and reading poetry at Café Younes in West Beirut.
Joseph Dispenza
Joseph Dispenza is the author of several books, including God On Your Own: Finding a Spiritual Path Outside Religion and The Way of the Traveler: Making Every Trip a Journey of Self-Discovery. He is a Spiritual Counselor and the founder of LifePath Retreats in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where he lives. lifepathretreats.com; joseph@lifepathretreats.com
Donnarama
Donnarama writes the column “Queen on the Scene” for Xtra, as well as contributing to other gay publications like Fab. Her favourite assignment was interviewing one of her idols, Shirley Manson from the rock band Garbage. But Donnarama is more famous in drag than in print. There is no rest for the wicked, so her dance card is full and she’s on stage nearly every night somewhere in Toronto and beyond. She’s the reigning queen at Canada’s longest running dance party, at The Fly, where she impersonates everyone from Madonna to Britney Spears to Barbra Streisand. Speaking of Babs, Donnarama was featured in a CBC television show as Canada’s premiere Barbra impersonator. She also designs the Pride Parade buses for the Toronto Transit Commission. She’s won umpteen awards, Miss this or that and the other, including humanitarian awards for her work in the LGBTQ community. She’s the Coors Light Queen of Halloween- and Halloween will always be her favourite time of year.
Sherman Fleming
Sherman Fleming is a performance artist, writer, and lecturer. He teaches performance studies at the Penn School of Design at University of Pennsylvania. He is the program manager of Philadelphia’s Mural Arts Program. In his work, Sherman explores issues of black masculinity, racism, social construction, and movement. To create his art, he fuses traditional elements of art along with utilitarian sources at hand. His work is influenced by ritual dance actions from African and pre-Columbian cultures. Sherman lectures and performs all over, including the Netherlands, Austria, Texas, and Washington, D.C. His performances are routinely referenced in anthologies and other art books, including: The Artist’s Body by Tracey Warr and Amelia Jones (Phaidon Press, 20000; Black Art and Culture in the 20th Century by Richard J. Powell (Thames and Hudson, 1997); and Uncorrupted Joy: Art Actions, History and Social Value by Kristine Stiles (University of California Press, 2004); among many others. Feel free to contact him at sherman.fleming@gmail.com.
Eddie Ford
Eddie Ford's story appeared in the Weekly Worker. It also appeared on mkcommunists.wordpress.com.
Timothy Gabriele
Timothy Gabriele writes for PopMatters. He studies English and film at University of Massachusetts. He is the Co-Director of an Upstate New York avant-garde sound organization, publicity manager for a small record label, host DJ to several college radio shows, intern to an experimental filmmaker, promotional products pusher for an evil corporate radio station, local news journalist, booker for a collective space, and a member of several other shadowy affiliations. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife, his dog and his two cats. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he also operates a blog.
Stephen J. Gertz
Stephen J. Gertz is a historian of the literature of popular culture, writer, and antiquarian bookseller in Los Angeles. stephenjgertz.com
Iaian Greenson (cover artist)
Iaian Greenson is a Canadian born visual artist whose work has shown in galleries all over Europe and North America, and in private collections from Los Angeles to Reykjavik.
His work was once described as art that went “…for the heart, the ass and the eye.” It hopes to remind us of moments, whether real or imagined, that are so deeply ingrained that they are instantly recognizable.
Figurative yet surreal with its feet planted firmly in mainstream pop iconography, the work seems to be about individuals examining objects in a path. And the themes of dysfunction and perversity ask us to seek meaning, not just from those objects, but from the path itself.
Andreas Gripp
Andreas Gripp is the author of eleven books of poetry including his latest, Anathema: Poems Selected & New (Harmonia Press, 2009). His poems have also appeared in the Literary Review of Canada, Van Gogh's Ear, Carousel, Ascent Aspirations, Canadian Zen Haiku, Sketchbook, and a number of anthologies. He lives in London, Ontario with his cat, Clea. andreasgripp.com
Andy Guess
Andy Guess is a graduate student in political science at Columbia University. He wrote “No Stranger in Moscow” while on a Fulbright research fellowship in Bucharest, Romania. He writes at filmpolitics.wordpress.com.
Rohin Guha
Rohin Guha [ohrohin.com] resides in Brooklyn, New York, where he wakes up every morning to the smell of engine oil and fried pork on his streets and falls asleep to the bass of an old-school Mariah Carey song pulsating in the next block over. He remains hard at work on his first novel.
Stan Guthrie
Stan Guthrie is an editor at large for Christianity Today magazine and author of Missions in the Third Millennium: 21 Key Trends for the 21st Century. Stan has appeared on National Public Radio's "Tell Me More," WGN's Milt Rosenberg program, and many Christian shows, including Moody Radio's "Prime Time Florida." An experienced podcaster and inspirational speaker, he is finishing a book about Jesus for Baker Books for scheduled publication in 2010. A columnist for BreakPoint.org, Stan served as moderator for the Christian Book Expo panel discussion, "Does the God of Christianity Exist, and What Difference Does It Make?"
Chris Hedges
Chris Hedges’ newest book is Empire of Illusion: the End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle (Nation Books, 2009). The Harvard educated writer and teacher is from Vermont, but he has worked as a reporter in some fifty countries. He has written about war firsthand from Iraq, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Bosnia, Sarajevo, West Bank, Sudan, Yemen, Libya, Algeria, Iran, Turkey and more. He has traveled even further. He was a Bureau Chief for the Middle East for the New York Times. He has also appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, Mother Jones, Harper’s Magazine, Foreign Affairs, and many others.
Chris’s experiences as witness to war inspired his bestselling book, War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. Other books include What Every Person Should Know About War, American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America, Collateral Damage; America's War Against Iraqi Civilians, and I Don’t Believe in Atheists. He also writes columns about culture and politics for Truth Dig at truthdig.com.
That same year, he was part of the New York Times team that won the Pulitzer Prize for coverage of global terrorism. He was also awarded the Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism.
Hedges speaks Arabic, Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, and English. He has taught at Columbia, New York and Princeton universities.
HiScrivener
hiscrivener.wordpress.com
HiScrivener is a person on a mission – to create an open forum for this generation’s “Writing on the Wall.” He believes that God speaks to the church through the daily news, and strives to offer “mainstream news for upstream believers.”
The name he writes with means “God’s scribe.” He writes with more than twenty years’ experience working in the church. He describes his writing as “gentle, poignant, and most of the time, snarky musings on the Church, it’s denominations and affiliations, the world it impacts and the news it permeates.
Obiwu Iwuanyanwu
Obiwu studied at universities in Nigeria and at Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York. His books include Unspeakable Protocols (2009), Tigress at Full Moon (2009), The World of Barack Obama (ed., 2009), Igbos of Northern Nigeria (1996), and Rituals of the Sun (1992). His awards include the Charanjit Rangi Leadership Award for Faculty Professional Excellence from the College of Arts & Sciences, Central State University, Wilberforce, Ohio (2008), Golden Key International Honour Society (2008), Resolution Recognition from the Greene County Board of Commissioners, Ohio State (2007), “Applause” Award from Xenia Daily Gazette, Xenia, Ohio (2007), Phi Beta Delta Award for International Scholars (2000), and Fellow of the International School of Theory in the Humanities (1998).
Reuben Jackson
Reuben Jackson has worked as an archivist with the Smithsonian Institution’s Duke Ellington Collection since 1989. His music reviews have been published in The Washington Post, Washington City Paper, All About Jazz, and Jazz Times Jazziz, and on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. He is also an instructor at the Writer’s Centre in Bethesda, Maryland, and a regular contributor to weekly radio news Metro Connection, heard onWAMU-FM, in Washington, D.C. His poems have published in twenty one anthologies, The Jazz Journalists Association website, and in a volume entitled fingering the keys. Reuben’s haiku was set to music by the late saxophonist Steve Lacy.
Reuben has been interviewed for series such as NPR’s Making the Music, and for forthcoming documentaries on the 1969 Woodstock Music Festival and pianist Ahmad Jamal. He has participated in symposia at The Experience Music Project, The International Association of Jazz Education, The Library of Congress, and at several Duke Ellington Conferences. He lives in Washington, D.C.
Pat Kane
Pat Kane is a writer, musician, consultant, player, theorist and activist. He is the author of The Play Ethic, which is much more than a book. As a meme, it is the intersection of technology, work, and creativity. Pat’s oeuvre was published in 2004, and since then he found himself in high demand- consulting in the commercial, organizational, and political realms. For example, he helped shaped Microsoft X-Box ad campaigns, and even conducted a seminar for London’s Cabinet Office. He was the first “thinker in residence” at the Bristol Festival of Ideas.
Pat has also been writing for numerous publications including The Independent and The Guardian. He was one of the founding editors of the Scotland Sunday Herald.
As a duo with his brother called Hue and Cry, Seduced and Abandoned was released with Circa Records in 1986. The second single, Labour of Love, became a top ten hit and Pat found himself opening for stadium giants like U2, Simply Red, and Madonna.
Visit him at theplayethic.com.
Born in Toronto, Jamyang Khedrup, nee Rory Tasker, studied political science at the University of Toronto. He became interested in tenets of Buddhism such as mindfulness and compassion, and his practice led him to India. He has been a monk for more than five years now. While he has worked with the sick, the poor, and the addicted, he is currently studying Tibetan, a dying language, in hopes of being part of the preservation of ancient documents and prayers.
Willie James King writes and resides in Montgomery, Alabama. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Alehouse, America, Appalachian Heritage, Confrontation Magazine, The Hawaii Pacific Review, The Lullwater Review, Mudfish, Obsidian:lll, Puerto del Sol, Rattle, The Southern Poetry Review, Willow Review, and many others. Willie's work has appeared in several anthologies, and his latest book is The House in the Heart, from Tebot Bach Press, 2007. One can reach him at wll3ki@aol.com. His web site is williejamesking.com.
Jeff Koopersmith
Jeff Koopersmith is founder of the American Politics Journal and author of The California Medfly Cookbook. He is an internationally renowned political consultant, opinion research authority and policy analyst. He has lobbied for causes including the alternative fuel sector and women's health, and is an expert on the international real estate market. He lives in Philadelphia, Washington and Geneva.
Kimberly Krautter
Kimberly Krautter is a Huffington Post blogger and Strategic Communications Consultant.
Raymond Lawrence
Raymond J. Lawrence is an Episcopal cleric, recently retired Director of Pastoral Care at Columbia University’s Medical Centre, New York Presbyterian Hospital, and author of numerous opinion pieces in newspapers in the U.S. He is author of the recently published, Sexual Liberation: The Scandal of Christendom (Praeger), as well as The Poisoning of Eros: Sexual Values in Conflict. He can be reached at: raymondlawrence@mac.com
John B. Lee
John B. Lee was appointed Poet Laureate of Brantford in perpetuity in 2005. The author of over fifty books, his work has appeared internationally in over 500 publications. The winner of over seventy poetry awards including being the only two-time recipient of the People's Poetry Award and twice recipient of the CBC Literary Award for poetry, in 2009 he won the Cranberry Tree Press Award, the Petra Kenney Poetry Prize (third place), the Rubicon Press Chapbook Award, The Grassroots Chapbook Award, the Oneal love poetry prize, and was short listed for the Winston Collins Award for Best Canadian Poem. His most recent books include The Place That We Keep After Leaving, (Black Moss Press, 2009), Island on the Wind-Breathed Edge of the Sea, (Hidden Brook Press, 2009), One Leaf in the Breath of the World, (Beret Days Press, 2009) and Let Light Try All the Doors, (Rubicon Press, 2009). He is currently working on several projects slated for publication in 2010. A book of essays on the impact on the arts of the international banking collapse called, Tough Times, is due out from Black Moss Press. A series of Cuban poems translated from the Spanish, Sweet Cuba, is forthcoming from Hidden Brook Press. A new book of poems, In the Muddy Shoes of Morning is forthcoming from Hidden Brook Press in 2010. The Michael Jackson poem is forthcoming in a new collection, The Burning Sweater, accepted for publication in 2010 by Black Moss Press. John B. Lee lives in Port Dover on the shores of Lake Erie.
Lorette C. Luzajic
Lorette C. Luzajic resides in Toronto. She writes about pop culture, mythology, writing, bipolar personality, food, health, addiction, grief, literature, and art. She also writes poetry and short fiction. She writes seven columns.
Lorette is the author of The Astronaut’s Wife: Poems of Eros and Thanatos; Weird Monologues for a Rainy Life (irreverent ramblings from the end of the world); its sequel, Dendrite Pandemonium: hits, misses, and random b-sides; and short fiction collection Funny Stories About Depression.
Lorette’s favourite topic is fascinating people, so she started a blog called Fascinating People (fascinatingpeople.wordpress.com). The most interesting person of all, she thought, is Michael Jackson, so she gave him a whole book.
Jonathan Margolis
Award winning UK journalist Jonathan Margolis writes the popular “Technopolis” column for The Financial Times’ howtospendit.com. He has contributed regularly to The Observer, The Guardian, The Mail on Sunday, the Daily Mirror, Reader’s Digest and Time Magazine. He was nominated for an award for his Time Magazine story about the reconstruction of an Albanian man’s face after being shot point blank by a Serbian militiaman. Though he frequently writes about serious issues in business, technology, and science, Jonathon is loved for the trademark wit he injects wherever possible into his work. His affinity for comedic brilliance is evident from his popular biography of Monty Python’s John Cleese, Cleese Encounters. Other popular book titles include A Brief History of Tomorrow, O: The Intimate History of the Orgasm, and Uri Geller: the Truth. He is a friend of the late Michael Jackson.
Ralph Martin
Toronto's best kept secret, Ralph Martin is an artist and writer with a different vision. He's no bad boy, ok he was about 30 years ago, but he is a romantic. He's also a believer in advancing social rights, not having to measure a thing to know whether or not it is a good thing, looking at the world with a smile, and wondering about such inscrutables as the origin of food, love, life, the garbage dump at the end of the universe and why he loves ice cream so much. You can look Ralph up at ralphmartinphotography.com get a look at some of his photos, and ask him about the art too.
David Masciotra
David Masciotra is the author of Working On a Dream: The Progressive Political Vision of Bruce Springsteen (Continuum Books). He has written for Z Magazine, the Catholic Worker, the Humanist, PopMatters, and the Herald News in Joliet, Illinois where he was a weekly political columnist. He is a graduate student at Valparaiso University, and lives in Indiana. For more information see davidmasciotra.com.
Angela Meyer
Angela Meyer is a young Australian writer and blogger. Her fiction, reviews, interviews and poetry have been published and performed widely, including in Hecate, Page Seventeen, Wet Ink, The Lifted Brow, Australian Book Review, and on ABC Radio National's The Book Show. She always has time for music, tequila and writers' festival after-parties. blogs.crikey.com.au/literaryminded
Reverend Irene Monroe
Rev. Irene Monroe is the Coordinator of the African American Roundtable of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry (CLGS) at the Pacific School of Religion, a professor in the Women's Studies Department at University of New Hampshire, and a religion columnist. A native of Brooklyn, Rev. Irene Monroe is a graduate from Wellesley College and Union Theological Seminary at Columbia University, and served as a pastor at an African-American church before coming to Harvard Divinity School for her doctorate as Ford Fellow. As a syndicated queer religion columnist, Monroe columns appear across the country and in the U.K.. She writes "The Religion Thang," for In Newsweekly, now called New England Blade, the largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender newspaper in the New England , "Faith Matters" for The Advocate Magazine, The Huffington Post, The Bilerico Project, Black Commentator, and "Queer Take," for The Witness, a progressive Episcopalian journal, and more.
Monroe states that her “columns are an interdisciplinary approach drawing on critical race theory, African American , queer and religious studies. As a religion columnist I try to inform the public of the role religion plays in discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people. Because homophobia is both a hatred of the “other ” and it’s usually acted upon ‘in the name of religion,” by reporting religion in the news I aim to highlight how religious intolerance and fundamentalism not only shatters the goal of American democracy, but also aids in perpetuating other forms of oppression such as racism, sexism, classism and anti-Semitism.”
Monroe has been profiled in Oprah Magazine, and CNN's Paula Zahn Now, and "CNN Headline News." She was also profiled in the Gay Pride Episode of "“In the Life" TV” where the segment on her was nominated for an educational Emmy. She has received the Harvard University Certificate of Distinction in Teaching several times.
Georgianne Nienaber
Georgianne Nienaber lives in the southern United States (several of them) but has spent a great deal of time in Africa, witnessing firsthand the devastation that is the Congo and Rwanda. She is an investigative journalist and an environmental and political writer. She writes about human rights injustices and war, but she also loves gorillas, and writes about these residents of Eastern Congo, too. Her latest book is Gorilla Dreams: The Legacy of Dian Fossey.
Georgianne’s work has been published everywhere, including The Huffington Post, The Society of Professional Journalists' Online Quill Magazine, The Ugandan Independent, Rwanda's New Times, India's TerraGreen, COA News, ZNET, OpEdNews, Glide Magazine, The Journal of the International Primate Protection League, Africa Front, The United Nations Publication, A Civil Society Observer, Bitch Magazine, and Zimbabwe's The Daily Mirror.
Georgianne also writes about her fellow southerners- she’s been meeting people who survived the hurricanes and investigating the reconstruction of the south. She’s also working on a collection of short stories set in her beloved Louisiana.
Jess Nevins
Jess Nevins the author of The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana, the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Pulp Heroes, the nascent The Victorians For Freshmen, and various companion books to the graphic novel series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. He is a librarian at the University of California at Riverside and tries not to act like a Gothic Hero-Villain to his wife Alicia and son Henry.
(O)CT(O)PUS
(O)CT(O)PUS is a pseudonym for a writer who wishes to remain anonymous. He worked in publishing, first as a writer and later as head of the educational film division of Prentice-Hall. After six years, he left publishing and started his own film production company based in NYC. Later, he sold the firm and moved to London where he attended the London School of Economics. After returning to the United States, he studied clinical psychology and social work at Rutgers University. (O)CT(O)PUS currently lives in Florida.
Onome
Onome is a writer, vocalist, and performance artist whose work has been published in numerous anthologies. At sixteen, she started riveting audiences nationwide with her spoken word poetry. Since then, her focus has expanded to singing and songwriting. She contributes her vocals to film scores, live collaborations and albums. Onome's richly textured contralto draws comparisons to Sade, Nina Simone and Cassandra Wilson, yet her lush harmonics, lyrical inventiveness and genre-transcending style put her in a class of her own. Her work focuses on unconventional beauty in unexpected places and the internal landscape of the soul. Her website is onome.org. Contact her at onome@onome.org.
Dion O’Reilly
Dion O’Reilly is a teacher, writer, artist, and mother who has spent most of life in the Soquel Valley in Santa Cruz California. Her writing and artwork has been published in the Porter Gulch Review, Lily Literary Review, The Doula, Mothersong Magazine, Antithesis Common, Dark Sky Magazine, The Psychology Quarterly, and the Istanbul Review. Currently she teaches English, Spanish, and ESL at the local high school.
dionoreilly@gmail.com
Carolyn R. Parsons
Carolyn Parsons is a writer, published both online and in print. She is a Top Health Blogger at Wellsphere's Health Blogger Network and writes regularly on her blog Breeze Daze at breezedaze.blogspot.com. She is also a television news reporter at Stratford First Local, Rogers Television News. Originally from Change Islands, Newfoundland, she now resides in Tavistock, Ontario with her husband, Kent Chaffey and their four daughters, Her first book, a poetry collection called Wind Rhymes was published at the end of September, 2009.
Samuel Peralta
Sam is a multi-awarded writer who has been been recognized by the Palanca Memorial Foundation, Scholastic Books, the BBC, the UK Poetry Society and The League of Canadian Poets. He also won the first Innovative Technology Achievement Award from the Digital Literature Institute, organizer of the Independent eBook Awards, for ebook software development. Lately he has been recognized for his Twitter-based poetry stream, where he writes using the handle @Semaphore. Sam’s works have been produced for stage, radio, television, and collected in anthologies from Scholastic Books, Palanca Press, York University, and Quarry Press. Selected and new poetry can be read online at semaphore1.blogspot.com and theimmortalsins.blogspot.com.
Michael Hureaux Perez
Black Agenda Report columnist michael hureaux perez is a writer, musician and teacher who lives in southwest Seattle, Washington. He is a longtime contributor to small and alternative presses around the country and performs his work frequently. Email to: tricksterbirdboy@yahoo.com
Javad Rahbar
Javad Rahbar, 29, has completed his studies in English Translation (B.A.) and English Literature (M.A.) at Karaj Azad University in Tehran province. Since then, he has taught English and translation at university and has worked as a translator for some cultural organizations. He currently works as a freelance journalist in the fields of cinema, literature and music and contributes to prominent magazine of his country including the monthly magazine, FILM.
His journalistic works include doing exclusive interviews with directors and writers from across the world, among them the Academy Award-winning director, James Marsh, on the movie Man on Wire (2008) and Blake Nelson, Paranoid Park writer.
He lives in Tehran, Iran. He can be reached via his email address: javadrahbar@gmail.com
Dr. Pamela D. Reed
Dr. Pamela D. Reed is an assistant professor of English and African American Literature at Virginia State University. Holding the Ph.D. in African American Studies, with emphasis on Cultural Aesthetics, from Temple University and the M.A. in Communications-Public Relations from the University of Louisiana-Monroe, she is uniquely equipped to dialogue on matters of race and culture. She has presently widely in the areas of diversity and cultural studies, including at the Oxford Round Table in the United Kingdom. Dr. Reed, a widely published cultural critic and public intellectual, is a contributor to both the Encyclopedia of Black Studies and the Encyclopedia of African Religions. Her writings have appeared in/on The Daily Voice.com, Diverse Issues in Higher Education, and other national publications. Additionally, she serves on the editorial board of the Affirmative Action Register. Presently she is working on a manuscript: The First Black President and the Racial Mountain (and other essays on Barack Obama, Race and American Culture).
Lauren Reichelt
Lauren Reichelt is director of a Health and Human Services Department in New Mexico where she oversees jail-based substance abuse treatment programs, intensive case management services for IV Drug Users and high-risk pregnant women, DWI prevention and treatment, and health care planning activities. She has worked with mothers of murdered children, substance abusers, and refugees. She uses organizing as a tool to help heal wounds resulting from historical trauma. She earned her MA in Comparative Culture from Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan. She blogs for Daily Kos and ePluribus Media as TheFatLadySings.
Ralph Remington
Minneapolis Councilmember Ralph Remington has a long history of political activism. As the producing artistic director of Pillsbury House Theatre, Ralph founded "Breaking Ice," a touring multiracial sociopolitical improv company.
He has been a guest lecturer at the University of Minnesota, using theatrical arts to address issues of violence and racism. Ralph holds a B.F.A. from Howard University in Washington, D.C. He is also a U.S. Army veteran.
As an African-American theatre artist and one of the few black founding producing artistic directors in the country, Ralph has largely dedicated his life to the empowerment of marginalized and disenfranchised people through artistic and dramatic expression. Ralph has always melded the arts with political activism.
Steven Rybicki
Steven Rybicki is the senior editor of Patrol Magazine (patrolmag.com).
Tara Stevens
Tara Stevens is a journalism graduate of Ryerson University and is a poet by night. By day she writes steamy newsletters and tries to navigate the alien poetry of HTML. After spending seven years in Dublin, she currently hangs her hat in Aurora, Ontario.
Edwin Turner
Edwin Turner writes at bibioklept.org.
David R. Usher
David R. Usher is a Legislative Analyst for the American Coalition for Fathers and Children, Missouri Coalition. His ideas can be found at newswithviews.com.
Uwineza Mimi Harriet
Uwineza Mimi Harriet is a writer, poet, and human rights defender. She studied social sciences, history, religion and philosophy. She is a member of Uganda Women Writers Association (FEMRITE), women who help each other is the field of publication, selling of their books and improving writing skills through seminars and other means. Founded in 1995, FEMRITE is now made up of 88 published and unpublished members.
She is the author of children’s book, Gito Mother and Murderer, with Fountain Publishers in 2009.
She has an unpublished research on tradition versus women rights: From suffocation to freedom: How traditional proverbs, taboos, riddles and tales encourage women rights violations and what can be done. She is involved in campaigns against Female Genital Mutilation. She is a commissioner of gender in the Human Rights Defenders Network, supported by Amnesty International In Kampala. mimiharriet7@gmail.com; nezabook@yahoo.com